One Unbroken Thread Poem by Jim Yerman

When you first walk into a cemetery you are quiet…you hold your breath
you are solemn and respectful…surrounded there by death.

You read the dates of their births and deaths and wonder about the life they led.
the beginning and the ending of one unbroken thread.

You quickly notice how some threads have stretched for many a moon.
while other threads were not as fortunate…ending much too soon.

One old and weather headstone immediately caught our gaze.
She was a baby…someones daughter…her thread stretching but two days.

We wondered what could have happened…we were shaken and perplexed
that a family could feel so much joy one day
and so much sorrow on the next.

In the midst of our curiosity…just outside the cemetery lawn
we noticed looking in at us…a newborn baby fawn.

She stood only for a moment…her smile brightened our day
then she turned around, and with her head held high…quietly walked away.

I like to try and find some meaning in every moment of every day
which made me wonder what that particular moment was attempting, then, to say.

Perhaps how it is good to visit death…to remember those we've loved and lost
to think if even briefly of other's paths we've crossed…

Perhaps how life is fleeting…how one minute we're here and then we're gone
Perhaps how as individuals we die, but life, itself goes on…

Perhaps to realize how so many lives to so many mean so much
to stop and think how many lives a single life can touch..

Perhaps how every life is important…how every life our spirits raise
even if that happiness only last a couple days.

Perhaps to live each moment as a baby girl and fawn intended
with our head held high until that moment when our thread is ended.